"Ruby on Rails does for web developers what a toilet-installing robot would do for plumbers."

I'm a freelance web developer, and I write in the ample spare time that this affords me. So some of this resonates for me. However, I started working on the web in '99, just in time to see the company I'd joined fritter their budget away on advertising, then crash and burn. I was 28 at the time, so I'd already had a good bit of time experiencing the pre-web world "out there". So the fact that web work can appear as an over-valued frivolity isn't such a revelation for me. I kind of take that for granted, while I thank my luck for having a skill that is still in demand. I'm also acutely aware of the threats posed by our infrastructure's dependency on cheap oil, not to mention the tremendous shakiness of the global financial system. I think that as evolved, embodied creatures, we sense in our bones that stuff like web development is infinitely more vaporous and lacking in sub...